Manner of Cruelty
by bebe22
Summary: A raped Manhattan teen disappears in Albany, and Elliot must unravel her family’s web of deception as he searches for his own peace of mind--with Olivia’s help, of course. EO building UST
1. Chapter 1

Manner of Cruelty  
  
author: bebe (bebe0216[at]hotmail.com)  
  
rating: pg-13  
  
summary: A raped Manhattan teen disappears in Albany, and Elliot must unravel her family's web of deception as he searches for his own peace of mind--with Olivia's help, of course. E/O building UST  
  
spoilers: none  
  
warnings: SVU contains adult themes; so does this story.  
  
disclaimer: I don't own L&O: SVU. This story is fictional: the setting is based on reality, and a lot of the places are real, but none of the people are--except bus stop people, because you can't make up someone that colorful. How I love the bus, and the Capital District...  
  
acknowledgments: thanks to my great beta, Kristen. major props to her!  
  
Chapter 1  
  
This is Manhattan in the summer: smoggy, hot, and glorious. In the early morning, the sun still low in the sky, the buildings' shadows kept a few street lights on. It was nearing the end of June, and while the stock traders were still yawning over their Starbucks cups, work crews everywhere were hanging red, white, and blue banners on the light poles. A heat wave was coming: the air was humid and heavy, but the pavement was still cool, and all along the wealthy West Side it felt like the city that never sleeps somehow was just waking up.  
  
Out on the fire escape behind her apartment, a woman sat, cell phone between her ear and shoulder. The cops were crawling all over her apartment and her soon-to-be-ex-husband kept calling, relentlessly. She shifted, and tipped over her coffee. It spilled through the red grating to rain on the street.  
  
The woman grunted in annoyance. Her "hubby" was becoming belligerent.  
  
"Dammit, Tara! How could you have sent her to be near _him_?"  
  
"No, damn _you_, Aaron. Damn you to hell."  
  
Tara flipped her cell phone shut. She reached back to fling it over the escape railing. Their daughter was gone and all Aaron could do was start a witch hunt.  
  
"Ma'am, I think we're through here," called a uniformed officer from within the bedroom.  
  
She snapped back into reality.  
  
"Great," she said. Her cell phone rang. "Goddammit! Would you excuse me--"  
  
The uniform on duty gave her a funny look. Normal women whose daughters were raped become distraught, frantic, scared--this one just looked angry.  
  
"Yeah, you damn well better pass this on, I don't want you poking around--no, you didn't--you goddamn--oh, to hell with you!"  
  
She turned her back on the cops in her bedroom. CSU was packing up its equipment, techs slinking out the door. The uniform looked at his watch and tapped his foot.  
  
"You're kidding. _That_ woman? ... No, I suppose there isn't. ... No, I guess I can't. You just stay out of my way." Her face was scarlet as she snapped the phone shut and whirled on the uni. "Are you still here? Because if you don't mind, I need to go find my daughter."

-----

"Another day, another eight hours behind a desk," Detective Benson announced, striding in through the unit's double doors and sliding the blazer off her shoulders. She tossed it over the back of her chair, looked up, and froze in place.  
  
"What in the--"  
  
Across Elliot's and her desk was arranged a pile of pastries: bagels, crullers, donuts, éclairs. It was the Medusa of confectionary arrays: one look, and your arteries turned to stone.  
  
"Hadn't you heard? Atkins put Krispy Kreme out of buisness, and I offered to liquidate their inventory," a voice across from her deadpanned.  
  
"You brought these, Munch?" she asked, pulling her eyes away from the tempting tower.  
  
"Guy downstairs is celebrating his retirement," offered Fin, before his partner could take the credit. "Bought enough to add an inch to the waistline of every cop in the precinct."  
  
"Nice," said Olivia, returning her gaze to the pastries. Free breakfast took the sting off desk duty, and the éclairs looked sumptuous. So did the croissants--they were so buttery, they were almost shining. And the donuts looked soft and sugary...  
  
"Have one," offered Munch. "I can recommend the Boston creme."  
  
"Yeah, he's had three already," Fin jabbed.  
  
"Two!" Munch corrected.  
  
"What's that in your hand, then?"  
  
Munch turned around and offered a glare. "It's a Bismarck."  
  
Olivia laughed. "I really don't know what to choose," she said, raising her hands in defeat.  
  
"This one." A man's hand reached from behind her and selected a fat, raspberry-filled croissant with toasted almonds.  
  
Olivia closed her eyes and smiled. "How do you do that, Elliot?"  
  
"How do I do what?" he asked innocently.  
  
Munch coughed and looked away.  
  
She took the croissant from his hand. "You always know exactly what I want." She cast a glare around the room and Munch and Fin, along with a few uniforms, went back to their buisness.  
  
Elliot shrugged and walked around to his side of the desk, looking into the filing cabinet there and digging around through the years of mess.  
  
"Yeah, I guess I do. Can't explain it. Maybe after all these years, I've just picked up on your quirks and--" he paused, surveying a folder out of alphabetical order "--idiosyncracies." He had a smile in the corner of his mouth that carried over to his voice. As he found the file he was after, he turned around and reached for the pile--only to see that the maple-frosted donut was missing.  
  
"All right, who took the donut I wanted?" he asked, smile gone.  
  
Without a word, Olivia set it down in front of him. He looked at her and chuckled silently, eating the greasy pastry over his case file.

-----  
  
"Elliot, Olivia, my office," called Captain Cragen.  
  
It was nine-fifteen; one hour and fifteen minutes into paperwork. The two detectives relievedly filed in, and the Cap closed the door behind them. Elliot looked down at the woman seated in front of Cragen's desk. She had a dark blue, narrow document in her hand, and was fanning herself with it.  
  
"What can we do for you, Miss Novak?" Olivia asked, before her partner could ask about the document--it could only be a warrant.  
  
Casey stopped fanning herself and smiled sideways.  
  
"I just got a call from the Kings County DA's office," she explained. "We have a rape of a 15-year-old girl, and a warrant for the suspect."  
  
"Hold on," said Olivia. "First of all, if the call came from Brooklyn, why isn't Brooklyn SVU handling it?"  
  
"The girl's from Manhattan. She lives with her mother on the Upper West Side, and apparently that's where the rape took place."  
  
The detectives angrily furrowed their eyebrows. While the real world beat desk work any day, this wasn't even a case--it was playing taxi service for someone else's criminal. Elliot swooped around behind the ADA, took a pen from his pocket, and began to chew the end. Olivia folded her arms and leaned on the side of the cap's desk.  
  
"So, what, some other squad took this case, solved it, and now we have to pick up the perp?" Elliot grumbled.  
  
Casey sighed. "It's not that simple--" she began.  
  
"The call came from Aaron van Hoek," Cragen interrupted. He'd rather get down to business than watch this uncomfortable exchange. "Former Kings County DA. The girl is his daughter; lives with the ex-wife, a politician named Tara Shiler. Turns out that Mommy Dearest witnessed the girl having sex with her 23-year-old boyfriend and did nothing about it."  
  
"Statutory rape," muttered Elliot behind the mutilated pen cap.  
  
"It gets better," Cragen added in an even tone. "This went on up until a few weeks ago, at Easter time--that's when Mr. van Hoek found out about the boyfriend."  
  
"Let me guess--he kicked him to the curb, but the guy was still hanging around." Olivia's tone revealed how many times they'd heard that one before.  
  
"Exactly," affirmed Casey.  
  
"Last night the girl's aunt calls her sister in a panic--girl's gone, and the boyfriend's sweatshirt is in her bedroom along with a note. The aunt thinks she ran off with him somewhere and tried to call in the girl as missing, but, she hasn't been gone long enough."  
  
"Thought she lived with the mother," said Elliot.  
  
"She does. She was visiting the aunt up near Albany, which, incidentally, is where the boyfriend resides," Casey responded.  
  
"Wait," said Olivia, who was fidgeting uneasily. "What you've said doesn't make a case for arresting anybody on rape. You have hearsay, a shirt, and a piece of paper. How did anyone get a warrant with that?" Her tone was incredulous.  
  
"It's for a DNA sample," Casey said, looking up with a smug expression. "Turns out the mother wasn't such a pushover after all--she fished the condom they used out of the trash. You find the guy, we can put him away."  
  
Before anyone could protest, Casey continued. "Since the girl left last night, and it takes twenty four hours to call someone in missing, you have the jump on Albany Missing Persons if you get up there quickly."  
  
Elliot snorted. "We have to go to _Albany_?" he asked, incredulous.  
  
"Well, Colonie. Close enough."  
  
"Cap," Olivia protested.  
  
"The problem is, Olivia, a rapist is a rapist. And bringing in this guy may help alleviate some very big headaches."  
  
The captain pushed a fat manila folder toward them. The detectives exchanged glances and opened it. There was a long pause before either one of them spoke.  
  
"We're on it," said Elliot quietly.

-----  
  
"I don't believe it. Tara Shiler? _The_ Tara Shiler, as in former State Representative Tara Shiler, R, Manhattan?" Munch stood, hands on his desk, leaning over and looking at Casey Novak with a puppy's enthusiasm.  
  
She grinned at him, and bit into an éclair. Munch looked like his greatest dream had come true. Fin rolled his eyes, as his partner was clearly enjoying himself too much.  
  
"The same former State Representative Shiler that compared the Supreme Court to the 9/11 hijackers when they struck down the Texas sodomy laws? The one who once said prayer would keep a person from getting AIDS, and called sex education 'the liberals' attempt to destroy America'? The one who claimed that abstinence is the _only_ right choice for any woman, and to even think otherwise makes a woman a whore?" Munch paused, grinning at the line he just devised. "The one who makes Ann Coulter look like a flower child?"  
  
Casey nodded eagerly, taking another bite. "This éclair is just...mm..." she managed, her mouth full.  
  
"And you're telling me that this woman--this self-righteous, overbearing, bible-beating woman--has a _sexually active_ teenage daughter." Munch sounded almost giddy. "The irony is just delicious!"  
  
"So're these." Casey popped the last bite of éclair into her mouth. "Seriously, I'm telling you the truth. Remember, though, it's technically rape. You should feel sorry for the woman, especially since the girl's gone missing."  
  
"She ran off with her boyfriend," Munch corrected. "I'm more interested in what's going on at that church--what is it--The Gospel of Unifying Divinity Ministry." He snickered, though he knew he shouldn't. Three girls missing in as many years...at least it appeared the case wasn't cold just yet.  
  
"As am I," said Casey. "But I do enjoy taking a swing at Ms. Shiler every now and then."  
  
"Oh?" Munch raised an eyebrow and sat down on the corner of the desk.  
  
The ADA shrugged. "Aaron and I go back and, as for Tara--she hates my guts, since I stumped for the guy who beat her in '02."  
  
Munch let out a happy sigh. "Miss Novak, have as many éclairs as you want."

-----  
  
It was ten-thirty in the morning at Penn Station, and the Amtrak train to Albany was boarding, set to leave in fifteen minutes. Train ridership was down, again--Amtrak seemed to always be losing riders--and the station was only somewhat crowded. The morning rush was over, and vendors were transitioning to lunch fare. The conductor beckoned the two detectives aboard the train. Olivia chose a seat by a window; Elliot took the aisle and stretched out his legs.  
  
They'd just had time to pack a bag with the clothes they kept in the bottom drawers of their desks. Change of underwear, socks, a toothbrush: what more would they need, even if the interview really did lead them somewhere? Olivia had the fat manila folder on her lap. Scrawled on the front were the letters "G.O.U.D." and on the tabs, filing jargon. She didn't want to look at the contents anymore; she'd had enough on the ride over.  
  
Where did these people come from? What was it that possessed them into thinking--into abandoning all reason and believing--that demons roamed the earth, and the only way to defeat them was through the complete subjugation of women to their "warrior" husbands? How do these cults fill their pews, not to mention their bank accounts--who believes this stuff? Olivia saw the risk involved with this train of thought; it would drive her mad if she let it long enough, and if she didn't drop it now, it would definitely make her mad. Neither would help much for this investigation.  
  
SVU had encountered these people before. The group began in Harlem with a small congregation and as the area gentrified they grew. They were elitist--they liked their members rich and white and well-connected. Shortly before 9/11, Tara Shiler had signed on, and in the weeks between then and the attack, a sixteen-year-old member vanished. When word reached Missing Persons that the girl was pregnant, SVU got the call. But then-- well, it was obvious why the case took a back burner, and with no leads-- just a lot of glowing endorsements of "the Lord's call to unity through domestic perfection"--it went cold. The group moved up the river, and no one heard a peep from them until a few days before Alex Cabot got herself into the mess that landed her in Federal Witness Protection. A distracted Elliot passed their data on to Albany; under the circumstances no one thought twice about it.  
  
Now, evidently, there had been another disappearance after that. If Jessi Shiler, the fifteen-year-old whose photograph was paper clipped to the folder's top flap, had run away for a summer fling with her boyfriend, that was one thing. If she was victim number four, that was another. Olivia felt a growing unease with this mess. There was sure to be a cover-up of _something_. She looked to her partner as the train lurched itself out on its way.  
  
He was sitting back in the seat, looking up at the cabin roof with a contented smile on his face.  
  
"You seem unusually chipper today," Olivia remarked, adjusting herself in the train's lightly padded seat. Of course, it was the kind of seat that made a sweaty body itch. The air was irritating, too--it had that feeling to it, sticky and multiply recycled, leaving a film over her body. How could Elliot be smiling? It was so hot and she realized, at that very moment, that she could smell the train's bathroom. Lovely.  
  
"I do?" Elliot replied. He was still grinning toothily.  
  
"Yeah, and what's with the big grin, huh?"  
  
Elliot rolled his neck in a circle, then looked at her. "Eh...I was just thinking how nice it is to get out of the city." He shrugged. "You know, spend my who-knows-how-long in the middle of nowhere getting a swab and a sob story from some scumbag punk kid."  
  
Now he looked sullen. He exhaled sharply through his nose and fidgeted with his watch.  
  
"Sorry to ruin the mood," Olivia offered.  
  
Elliot chuckled once, and gave her a did-you-just-say-what-I-think- you-said look. Olivia rolled her eyes--she needed to turn the conversation back on him.  
  
"So your mind's _in_ the gutter, but what's _on_ it?" At Elliot's laugh she continued. "I mean, you've been even more emotionally aloof than usual the last few days. So spill it, Stabler."  
  
"Nothing," he admitted. "There's nothing. Just maybe," he paused, "maybe I called home before we left the station and nobody answered."  
  
"It's summer vacation, Elliot, Kathy probably took the twins out to enjoy the nice day."  
  
Elliot shook his head. A half-smile had crept back on to his face. "Nah. Kathleen is doing some volunteer work and the twins have some day camp they go to. Kathy's probably out seeing her therapist."  
  
It was funny. Ever since Elliot had come home and found a day planner on the kitchen table with the name Richard penciled into blocks for every day from mid-March onwards--Kathy's explanation was that he was a marriage counselor--he had let a wall build around his feelings toward his wife and her obvious fabrication. He took that transparent lie and instead of admitting the truth to himself, he held it up and focused on his reflection, because if he wanted to enough he knew he could believe her. He stuffed his pride down, took an extra hour at the gym now and then, worked harder on the cases if that was possible, and lately had been just enjoying life. It was as if he had just shut off that part of him that made him worry and feel guilty for spending so much time with his partner and not his family. Guilt? What guilt? Problem? There was none. A cloud of apathy in place and he was good to go, even "chipper," as Olivia called it.  
  
And as it was, at that moment, on board the train, the reality of his deteriorating family life was so separated from his conscious that he could grin at his partner and wink and tell her things were looking up without feeling the pain that came from that lie.  
  
The 10:45 Amtrak rolled on for the Rensselaer station.


	2. Chapter 2

Manner of Cruelty  
  
author: bebe (bebe0216[at]hotmail.com)  
  
rating: pg-13  
  
acknowledgements: Thanks once again to my fantastic beta, made to suffer through a sluggish, unedited hack job I called "the draft before this one." She is sooo awesome.  
  
author's note: Wow, thanks for the stellar reviews! I am sorry that my updating pace is slow--if I were that good at writing that I could update every day, I would.  
For today's part of the story, I want to clarify something: Detective Sergeant is an actual rank used by the Colonie Police. As silly as it sounds, it's for real: I looked it up on their website. They also have a "Special Investigations" unit; the characters in this story are fictional members. I wanted to get that out of the way so that nobody looked and said "huh? This is stupid." The fact is, I like to use real details, so for the most part, unless it's got to do with an OC, it's "pulled-from-the- headlines" or "I-saw-it-on-my-ride-home" real. Additionally, I do not share Sean Grady's views. I heard them expressed by a person I know, and felt that they fit the persona of the character. I do not endorse what he says; I also strongly discourage smoking, but not self-caffeinating. That's fine by me.  
I'll be posting status reports on this story and any future ones (this is gonna be a series, donchaknow) on my author page here on ff.net, so if you are curious, you can check there for when the update will be. Now bust out the popcorn; on with the show!  
  
(Edited 6/20/04--removed MAJOR error.)  
  
Chapter 2  
  
"Well, they built this place recently," Olivia announced as the pair of detectives disembarked.  
  
Elliot looked at his partner quizzically for a minute. He wasn't yet awake; if it hadn't been for the sharp lurch as they'd pulled into the station, he'd still be sleeping happily and bound for Montreal.  
  
"Used to be just one big waiting room, with a greasy spoon in the corner masquerading as an 'upscale eatery,'" she laughed, looking up at the modern high ceiling as the two walked toward the exit door. She caught her partner's confused look and added, "you know, back when I would take the train home on my breaks from Siena."  
  
"Right, right," mumbled Elliot. He felt sticky; he rubbed his eyes; he walked smack into a man.  
  
"'Ey, man, watch where you goin'!"  
  
Olivia looked at her partner with muted surprise. "You all right?" she asked as they stepped out through the large, tinted safety glass doors.  
  
They were nearly blasted back by the heat. Over every car, over the pavement, and out through the trees and across the Hudson toward the Albany skyline, the background wobbled in the haze. The blacktop was like an oven burner, and they could feel it through the soles of their shoes.  
  
"Wow," Elliot managed. "It's, ah, a little hot out here."  
  
Olivia held one hand up to block the sun and scanned the area. At the edge of the lot was a bus shelter packed with teens and one morbidly obese man in a tank top and shorts. Beyond that, traffic was at a standstill, with a lone police cruiser inching along on the shoulder to get around the jam. The teens were roughhousing one another and the man was hunched over on the bench, trying to avoid them. Elliot, too, had his hand up to shade his eyes. He was watching the teens.  
  
"Elliot."  
  
"What?" he asked, his attention unwavering.  
  
"Don't stare."  
  
Elliot turned and grinned. It was his disarming grin, the one that always worked on her to get her to grin back--and she did, for a brief second. But her expression turned serious and she laid a hand on his arm. He didn't flinch; her hands were cool and he didn't really mind where she put them.  
  
"I mean it, Elliot. This is as rough a place as the City; trust me on that. What are you doing with your guard down?"  
  
"My guard is not down," he protested, punctuating the remark by looking directly into her eyes.  
  
She met his gaze. "Yes, it is. No New Yorker bumps into people. Ever."  
  
Elliot shifted his weight to his right foot and back to his left; Olivia pushed her hair out of her face. The sun burned their skin and their scalps but neither broke eye contact. The cruiser edged around the corner into the parking lot and pulled up next to them.  
  
A large, ruddy-faced man with a farmer's tan and stubbly red hair and eyebrows climbed out of the passenger's side of the police car. He had an unbuttoned white oxford shirt on over a white t-shirt and navy blue pants. The holster for his gun was visible; the gun itself bent awkwardly under his potbelly. The cruiser's engine sputtered off and the driver stepped out: a tall, dark-skinned African-American man with a bald head and cut figure, wearing a tan dress shirt--fully buttoned, perfectly creased--and white trousers.  
  
"I'm Detective Sergeant Sean Grady; this is my partner, Detective Sergeant Mike Williams, Colonie Special Investigations," offered the pudgy one, extending his hand.  
  
Olivia turned first. "Detective Olivia Benson; my partner, Detective Elliot Stabler, Manhattan Special Victims." She took the man's outstretched hand and shook it; he squeezed hard, but she didn't wince.  
  
"Nice to be special, isn't it?" he joked, turning to Elliot. No one laughed. "Anyway, I'm glad you guys are here. Sorry to be late, but we had a lot of calls this morning. The squad, I mean. This is supposed to be my day off--I just got up."  
  
"Lucky you," said Elliot, and ignored Grady's hurt expression.  
  
At the bus stop, the teens were getting raucous. One of them caught sight of the cruiser.  
  
"Pigs!" they shouted.  
  
"Hey cop, shoot any people today?" screamed one. They made obscene gestures, most of which were fortunately obscured by the heat haze.  
  
"We should go serve our warrant," said Elliot, once again watching the teens.  
  
Grady cast a wary eye over to the stop. "Sorry about this, detectives. Ever since that bystander got killed by a ricochet bullet, we've got nothing but crap from just about everybody. It wasn't even us-- it was Albany police--but they don't care."  
  
"Sounds about right," said Elliot. "We get it all the time."  
  
"Well, I hate to keep apologizing, but we haven't exactly got you guys a car yet, so we're gonna have to all go in the cruiser. Got some guys'll bring one over to the scene so you can drive in your doer."  
  
"Nobody's picked up the guy yet?" asked Olivia as Grady opened the rear door.  
  
"'Fraid not; like I said, we had a lot of calls this morning."  
  
Williams climbed in the driver's seat; Elliot stepped toward the open door but Grady stopped him.  
  
"Ladies first," he said, and bowed for Olivia.  
  
Elliot suppressed a grunt as his partner flashed him a sideways grin. He climbed around the car and took his place behind Williams and multiple layers of Plexiglas.  
  
-----  
  
Albany looks, from a distance, like a cardboard miniature from a cheap B-movie set. There are four identical boxy skyscrapers, all in a row, and one anemic Empire State Building knockoff alongside them. But what draws the eye is the alien spaceship, touched down in the center and set up high: a giant, dirty, white, ovoid flying saucer. Elliot knew that it was actually a theater--Grady was only telling him something he already knew quite well--but that didn't change the fact that he always felt, coming into this city, the same uncomfortable apprehensiveness.  
  
Grady's commentary didn't help any.  
  
"I know you detectives down in the City think you've got it rough, but believe me: Albany County--" he took a sip from his coffee and with his other hand, flicked ashes from his cigarette out the window "--has the highest crime rate in the state."  
  
Olivia watched him through the rear view mirror. Yes, he was drinking coffee. The lid was off the cup and she could see it was pale from the cream in it. The smell filtered back--it had sugar in it, too. He was drinking coffee with cream and sugar, and it was 102 degrees outside, or so the sign by the bank said--and it was in the shade. He'd even opened the window to let the smoke from his cigarette get out, and that side of his neck had little beads of perspiration. Elliot noticed this, too; he also noticed how Williams seemed completely disinterested, unperturbed by the smell, the heat and the unholy union of the two.  
  
Grady continued, oblivious to the reactions of his audience. "It makes sense, too, when you think about it. All these crazies running around: politicians, lawyers, lobbyists, old money rich bastards, you know. And it's set up like Manhattan used to be. Used to be you guys dealt with over six hundred murders a year. Now, your population is up in the millions, and you have, what, a hundred? And I know the reason: gentrification. Make your muggers move out."  
  
Williams rolled his eyes, used to his partner's spiel. Olivia and Elliot listened, vaguely reminded of Munch, if Munch were a fat chain-smoking Irish Catholic with bad grammar whose waistband was wider than his mind.  
  
"Yeah, well, we're not here to solve the city's underlying social ills," Olivia huffed. "We've got a rape case and an old kidnapping."  
  
Grady looked sullen. He had that kind of puffy face that lent itself easily to comic over expression, which was probably why so many people laughed at him when he got upset. Elliot and Olivia had met men like that before--jovial, but with a temper not to be underestimated.  
  
"Detective Grady, I'm having trouble understanding why we're on this case," offered Elliot, in an attempt to defuse the situation. He leaned back, put his arms up, and rested his head on the seat back. "Now, we had an incident about three years ago where a girl disappeared, most likely kidnapped. It got sent over to us, since Missing Persons figured the disappearance was related to the fact that the girl was raped. Now, we didn't get anywhere with the investigation, and the church relocated up the river. My understanding is that a girl from Troy and one from--" he paused to recollect the strange name "--Watervliet disappeared later under similar circumstances: raped and vanished before it was reported."  
  
"We see the relationship here, but this case doesn't seem to fit the way it's been made out. The only connection is the church," Olivia finished.  
  
"Cult," corrected Grady.  
  
"Where do you fit in, Detective?" she asked.  
  
They'd reached Colonie, where there were strip malls and car dealerships with plastic and asphalt looking ready to melt into one another. It reminded Elliot of some areas of Queens.  
  
"I've been investigating that damned G.O.U.D. cult for years," Grady grumbled. Ashes were falling in his coffee, which he drank without noticing. "You don't understand. They don't hold a weekly worship service like a normal church. No, they have this monthly thing, a big conference, and they always have it in Colonie. Like we want them around. Every time, it's at one of the big name hotels on Wolf Road. They come in like a pack of vultures. We always get calls. They harass the guests, you know? Walk up to couples and ask if they're married. Hand out ponchos to women at the pool. Knock on doors and invite people to their service. Leave copies of their amended Bible with that crazy fifth Gospel they made up in it. Nobody wants them around, but the hotels--well, I guess they pay a lot to reserve them, so they don't mind; they won't lose any business."  
  
Elliot only half-listened to Grady's rant. They had turned down a tree-lined street, but up ahead he could see a change of scenery to a scrapped rail yard and old brick buildings. Williams was stone-faced and Grady teary-eyed as he continued.  
  
"Those girls...those were good little girls. Went to Catholic High like my little girl, but their parents were really with that cult. When they disappeared, of course it went to Troy and Watervliet PD. Not our jurisdiction, but, you know. I was interested. Got a list of all the members; I ran background checks on every last one of them and you know what I came up with? Squat. Nothing. Then, last night, I'm listening to the scanner, and I hear this call out of Albany proper--teen girl, missing. I recognize the address somehow and I check my list and--bam!--I know it's number four. Nothing I can do about it--until we get the call this morning for your warrant, and whaddaya know, he's here in Colonie. All this time!"  
  
Olivia looked at Elliot, who was rubbing his hands together in his lap to take the clamminess of sweat and air conditioning off. He noticed the angle of her eyes and shot back a playful raised eyebrow. She gave him a disgusted look, and went back to staring out the window.  
  
"So I hang up after Mikey calls me with the news, and I call down to the office the warrant came out of. Now, here's you gonna ice this guy. And to top it all off, do you know who this kid is?"  
  
Elliot looked over at Grady. "Nicholas Jeremy, engineering student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, former member of the G.O.U.D. cult?"  
  
"The _nephew_ of its founder, and onetime record keeper." Grady's eyes twinkled. "He knew all four girls."  
  
-----  
  
It was two o'clock in the afternoon; one o'clock by the sun. Casey pulled the napkin wad from her purse and peeled it apart, exposing the contents: a fat cranberry muffin in layers of now-transparent paper. She'd regretted being unable to stick around and chat with Detective Munch; it wasn't every day that someone took an interest in her political exploits. He'd been so nice, giving her the last éclair--which she had eaten on the way to court--and this muffin, which she decided to eat now that she was back in her office.  
  
But it was not to be. A knock at the frame of her open door and she saw Aaron van Hoek standing in it.  
  
"Sorry to bother you, Casey," he said. He looked tired and his gray hair, normally tidily combed in a severe left-side part, stuck out in all directions.  
  
"Aaron. It's been a long time." She stood, attempting to sweep the muffin behind her desk's overflowing inbox, but he saw it anyway and smiled at her.  
  
"Still on the see-food diet?" he joked.  
  
She shrugged and deflected. "How're you coping?"  
  
"Fine," he lied. He slumped into a semi-comfortable chair next to the window. "I just wish I'd seen this coming."  
  
"If it's any consolation, I don't think Tara did, either."  
  
The older man looked agitated. "I got another call this morning, after I asked you to put your detectives on this case. Some cop up in Colonie saw the same thing I did--so you no longer have to worry about how I'm 'abusing' my privileges as former DA."  
  
"We all know there's nothing wrong with calling in favors," said Casey reassuringly.  
  
"Then you won't mind if I ask one from you."  
  
Casey's face fell. "What kind of favor?"  
  
She looked across the table at her friend and studied his face.  
  
"Tara shut her phone--phones--off. _All_ of her phones. If you get any news about Jessi..." his voice trailed as he reached into his shirt pocket. "Tara goes to Pilates at seven. This is a guest pass to her gym." His eyes twinkled. "It should erase the guilt from the muffin."  
  
Casey opened her mouth to protest, but was cut off. He placed the card in front of her; she recognized the name. It was upscale--a haven for the city's buff-from-riches--and women-only.  
  
"I know you have your differences, but you know as well as I that her party's New York headquarters is an impregnable fortress. This is the only way I can think of to get her any updates."  
  
"Aaron--"  
  
"Casey. I obviously can't go; besides, she already knows I had the case handed off to you. And before you ask, yes, she was mad. But I knew we had to get this guy back here. She doesn't seem to understand the harm she's doing to our daughter by putting her with homicidal cult members."  
  
"You think the girls were murdered."  
  
He stood up and paced around, his hands clasped behind his back. This case was torturing him; Casey knew that. His only daughter, from Tara, the would-be trophy wife--he wanted to see her grow up. He just wouldn't say that aloud. His mouth opened and closed a few times but he didn't address her.  
  
"Aaron, you can say what's on your mind," she assured him, standing and reaching over, beckoning for him to sit back down.  
  
"I think Tara's involved in this!" he blurted.  
  
The room flipped upside down.  
  
"Are you all right?" the former DA gasped, diving for Casey as she fell backward. His hands caught her elbow and she snapped into reality.  
  
"Fine, fine," she sputtered. "Listen, Aaron?"  
  
He raised an eyebrow and released her arm.  
  
"I'm going to give you a number, and I want you to call it. It's one of my detectives, all right?"  
  
He nodded; she scribbled.  
  
"And Aaron? I will _definitely_ be there."  
  
"Seven o'clock."  
  
They nodded parting and van Hoek turned to leave just as the phone rang.  
  
"ADA Casey Novak."  
  
For the second time in two minutes, Casey felt the floor give beneath her, and she collapsed into her chair.  
  
"Oh, my God..."  
  
-----  
  
One-forty-five in the afternoon; Detective Sergeant Williams pulled the car up in front of a three-story brick building. Elliot and Olivia exchanged glances.  
  
"You sure this is the address?" Olivia asked.  
  
Half the windows were bricked up, a third were boarded up, and the remainder were open. A sign reading "No Trespassing" was posted out on the dark green Victorian door. But the front of the building was nicely landscaped; the bushes were pruned, and the wrought iron recently painted black; there was a neat set of mailboxes out front, and a call box in the door arch.  
  
"A lot of college kids live out here," said Williams. "Rent's cheap."  
  
The four detectives climbed out of the car into the heat. As they did, they saw two uniformed men climb out of black sedans with blurry edges and move to join them. Olivia and Elliot adjusted their guns, and Elliot brandished the warrant. All six converged on the door.  
  
"How should we play this?" asked Olivia, scanning the call box for a Jeremy. She found it--third floor, number 3B.  
  
Elliot looked at the door frame, not sure how to answer yet.  
  
"Evidently we're on the honor system with the sign here. Door's open, no lock."  
  
"Go up. We'll be right behind you," offered Grady.  
  
"Think the guy's dangerous?" asked Olivia.  
  
"Ask Jessi Shiler," Grady replied.  
  
Olivia wordlessly pushed open the door. The inside was dark; evidently, the boarded-up and bricked windows faced the hallway and staircases. She felt along the wall for a light switch; finding one, she flipped it and nothing happened.  
  
"Bulb's burned out," she muttered. "And there's no air conditioning, either. This place is a sauna."  
  
"You know, those never relax me," said Elliot.  
  
"I do prefer a bubble bath, myself," said Olivia with a smirk.  
  
Elliot chuckled. He slipped past his partner and began climbing the stairs. Something crunched under his feet.  
  
"Watch yourself," he whispered, placing a hand back in warning. His fingertips brushed against her shoulder, which was damp with perspiration-- or maybe it was his hand that was damp; it was impossible to tell.  
  
"Look out, broken glass," intoned Grady, climbing behind them. The stairs creaked under his weight.  
  
"This does not look good," said Olivia.  
  
They reached the second floor landing, turned, and headed down the hall. Cracks between the window boards lit the way. A uniform at the rear passed forward a Maglite; Elliot took it and shined it on the ground. There was glass everywhere, covering the full width of the corridor. Elliot swept it to the side with his foot.  
  
"We might need a unit here," he muttered as they turned up the second flight of stairs.  
  
Olivia leaned on the wall, trying to get a look around the corner at the top of the stairs before she stepped into the hallway. Elliot shined the light beam down in each direction: nothing but empty halls with broken glass on the floor. One door read 3A; they passed it and found 3B. They could hear Grady in the stairwell breathing heavily, shifting his weight with the floorboards groaning in protest.  
  
Elliot knocked on the apartment door.  
  
"Nick Jeremy?" he called, resting his elbow on the frame. When there was no answer, he knocked again.  
  
"I hear something coming from inside," Olivia whispered.  
  
Elliot lowered the flashlight. He could barely see his partner's face as both leaned in, their ears near the door. Sure enough, it sounded like a television: a sitcom, maybe a game show. The bursts of canned laughter were almost insulting. Elliot's grip on the light faltered from the sweat on his hands.  
  
Olivia banged her fist on the door. "Nick Jeremy, this is the police! Open up or we _will_ open the door for you!"  
  
Elliot repositioned himself, lowering his hand to reach for his gun. The light beam trailed along the door seam.  
  
"Elliot!" Olivia gasped, grabbing his hand and the Maglite in it. "Look!"  
  
Blood. There were two drops, right on the floor below the knob.  
  
Elliot muttered a curse and turned the flashlight on the door. There were red streaks where someone had wiped it clean. The next thing anyone knew, he had smashed it open.  
  
"Oh, my God," Grady managed.  
  
Elliot darted in; Olivia flanking him, she took the room to the right. The door was open; the walls plastered with posters and sketches. Where was their perp? If he was in here--  
  
Behind her, the Colonie officers were bellowing "Police! Freeze!"  
  
But she froze instead, surveying the images that covered the wall: cartoon women in various compromised positions, rape in full detail. Magazines were piled in cardboard boxes. Two had bloody handprints and above them was a smear on the wall, leading down over the bed. She ducked down, gun ready.  
  
There was no one in the bed, and no one behind it.  
  
She checked the closet--nothing, but there was a trail of blood on the floor and she followed it. Her eyes fell on the bathroom door and she steadied her gun as she approached.  
  
The room was empty, but the sink and floor were smeared reddish brown. So were the shower and a sopping towel stuffed behind the toilet.  
  
"Olivia!"  
  
She felt her heart pound and turned, ducking back into the living room where they'd entered. Grady was on his knees beside the blood at the door; Williams was on the radio and a uniform was holding his mouth shut. Her eyes scanned the room.  
  
"Where are you?" she called to her partner.  
  
He stepped in through a side door, pushing it open. A huge, smeared handprint was on the reverse side. He gestured for her to enter, and she did, her eyes wide and her lips slightly parted. They were in the kitchen: a meat cleaver soaked in blood lay in a pool on the table; there were puddles on the floor and the rear window to the fire escape was open.  
  
The blood smears continued all the way down.  
  
Olivia looked at Elliot. The expression on his face was unreadable.  
  
"I guess we have our DNA sample," he said flatly.  
  
His partner took out her cell phone, pressed a button and swallowed hard.  
  
_"ADA Casey Novak."  
_  
"Casey? You might want to sit down..." 


	3. Chapter 3

Manner of Cruelty  
  
author: bebe (bebe0216[at]hotmail.com)  
  
rating: pg-13  
  
author's note: Please see my author page for notes on this story.  
  
acknowledgments: Once again, my beta deserves major props--she caught my stupid mistakes, and made this thing gold. Yeah.  
  
Chapter 3  
  
Four o'clock: the sun was relentless. Olivia's hands were dry from the damned latex gloves, and the horrible smell of the crime scene permeated her sweat-damped tank top. She nudged the bagel further back on the dash of the black sedan, not wanting to look at it or its translucent paper wrapper. She hadn't asked for it; Grady had just brought it to her while she stood in Nick Jeremy's fouled bedroom, thumbing through a hentai manga with an RPI mass mailing for a bookmark.  
  
Ah, cartoon kiddie porn. What a charming perp they had. Many of the pictures on the wall were clearly hand-drawn: amateurish and anatomically awkward, and signed NJ. How lovely! Evidence would certainly craft a display for these masterpieces of the art world, although it would be highly unlikely that their creator would ever get them back.  
  
Olivia banished the images from her mind. She'd seen too much to be bothered by some punk's uninspired drawings, let alone be shocked by them.  
  
It was the crime that was the problem, threatening a declaration of war on her sanity. The evidence technician had promised to give a preliminary serology report before midnight, but until then, they didn't even know whose blood they were looking at. They could only operate under the working theory that at least some of it belonged to Nick: the TV and the stove were left on when they'd arrived, and there was a steak next to the bloody meat cleaver, which suggested that he'd been surprised by someone. Factoring in Jessi's disappearance--well, they had to be sure they could put the teen at the scene. And that had brought them back to the investigation at hand.  
  
They were parked outside of the palatial Shiler residence. Olivia looked up at its ivy-covered stone exterior, at the tall pines and the rose garden, at the slated walkway with overarching grapevine-wrapped trellises. This was the address; there was no denying it. The Shilers lived in a castle. Olivia looked to her partner: Elliot had stolen her bottled water, and looked like he was enjoying the last drops. It figured, but she wasn't about to complain.  
  
After all, Nick had made their jobs easier, leaving a paper trail directly to the place. Jessi and her aunt were the first names on the list of phone numbers that Elliot had found, tacked on the wall above the two handprints and next to the smear. As it was, her partner had stared at those handprints for some time, even as the local CSU crawled over the apartment, technicians photographing and sampling every fluid deposit available. The bloody towel behind the toilet left in a plastic evidence bag, as did the knife, but he had remained focused on the handprints.  
  
Grady had approached them, then. He had brought a bag of bagels and excuses, but no witnesses--not even from complexes on the other side of the alley. He had called the place a ghost town and had offered a snack. No one, not a single one of the other officers on the site, had turned up anything--zip, zilch, nada--not even a body. They only had a blood puddle in the alleyway at the bottom of the fire escape. Williams was coordinating an effort to track Nick via his cell phone; under the circumstances, they would do the same for Jessi Shiler. Grady was looking into Nick's resources; if he had survived the attack--or worse, was the attacker--he might be traceable by his car, or his financial transactions.  
  
The situation looked grim. Olivia had just begun to commiserate with Grady--hence the bagel--and in the dizzy heat of dehydration she hadn't noticed Elliot take hold of her hand until he saw how perfectly her fingers aligned with the print on the right side of the magazine box. And just as she had snapped into reality, Elliot had raised his own hand to the left handprint. Even without a fingerprint analysis, there was no doubt: the left print was Nick Jeremy's, and the right one belonged to a woman.  
  
"Or a teenaged girl," Olivia muttered.  
  
"Earth to Detective Benson," said Elliot. "We've been sitting here for two minutes--are we going to interview the aunt, or what?"  
  
His hand was on her wrist again, but this time, it was to pry her from the steering wheel. She shook him off.  
  
"I'm coming; everything's fine. I'm fine," she insisted.  
  
He gave her a confused, almost mocking look. "I didn't ask how you were feeling."  
  
She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, he was out of the car with the door shut behind him and leaning on the hood with his eyebrows raised. She let out a huff and blew the hair from her face.  
  
"What's going on with you?" she prodded, climbing out of the car after him.  
  
His only reply was an innocent smile. The sun in his eyes made him squint and the resulting expression was endearingly goofy. Olivia resisted the urge to laugh and scolded him instead.  
  
"Elliot, for all we know, that girl and her boyfriend could both be dead. If you see something funny about that, I think that maybe _you_ ought to be seeing a therapist."  
  
He was stung; she instantly regretted her comment.  
  
"Sorry," she said, and began distractedly fishing around in her pockets.  
  
"Maybe you're right," he replied with a shrug. "I'll start going along to the sessions. Sound good to you?"  
  
He was smiling at her again. How many times was that so far, and in just one day? For him to concede so readily, without their customary bullheaded standoff, was almost inconceivable. She had to ask the question that had been nagging at the back of her mind since his disclosure on the Amtrak train.  
  
"Elliot, doesn't a marriage therapist usually see both parties to begin with?" she asked as she walked around the car to join him on the slate path.  
  
He stiffened, tucked his tie into his shirt, thought better of rolling up his sleeves, and paused to think about her question for a split second.  
  
"I think so," he said with a nod.  
  
Olivia looked up to the front door of the giant house. It had opened slightly, and someone was watching them from behind it.  
  
"You ready?" she asked her partner, who was chewing on his bottom lip.  
  
He grunted in reply.  
  
She knew she had struck a nerve.  
  
"Focus," she mumbled as the pair fell into step, marching up under the row of arches.  
  
-----  
  
"Hey, hey! What do you think you're doing?"  
  
Fin turned around from his position--hunched over by the garbage can-- to face his partner.  
  
"It's ninety-something degrees out there, John. I don't even want to look at these anymore."  
  
"Oh, come on, they're still good. Why, this morning, you were on them like pork riders to handgun legislation. What's the problem now?"  
  
Fin rolled his eyes and lifted the tray of baked goods up away from the trash. "What's wrong with a normal metaphor once in a while?"  
  
"What's wrong with my pastries?"  
  
"Nothing's wrong with your pastries." Fin sighed.  
  
Munch folded his arms. "Then why are you throwing them away?"  
  
"I'm not," Fin replied. He set them on Munch's desk with a satisfying plop. One of the jelly donuts leaked its contents onto a legal pad.  
  
"What was that about?" Munch demanded.  
  
"Was what about?" Fin replied.  
  
"Oh, don't give me that."  
  
"Children!" The captain stood between them, looking at once both mildly amused and mildly nauseated. He may have had one or two donuts earlier--certainly cause for digestive regret.  
  
"Captain," said Munch, straightening up. "Are you here to free us from this unfortunate misery known as the bench, or do we have the honor of spending an additional day in each other's company, reminiscing over the case files of yesteryear?"  
  
"Neither," replied the Cap. "There's a call for you in my office. I'll need both of you to stick around this evening."  
  
"Good thing you don't have any plans," said Fin to Munch.  
  
"Only with you," Munch replied, picking up the donut tray. "I'm going to get the phone--put these in the crib, would you?"  
  
"The crib? You tired of looking at them, too?"  
  
"No, I just thought that the next time someone spends the night, they might enjoy a complimentary continental breakfast."  
  
He walked into the office.  
  
"They'll be all green and moldy by then!" Fin protested as Cragen followed Munch. "Cap..."  
  
The captain offered a shrug and shut the door.  
  
Fin turned and sighed in resignation. He slid the jelly donut back onto the tray with the others, picked the tray up, and headed for the crib where a uniform was just waking up.  
  
"Are those from this morning?" the sleepy man asked, yawning a foul breath into his hand.  
  
"Yeah," replied Fin. "Been incubating in the squad room all day, growing mold just for you."  
  
The uniform lifted up a cheese danish and chomped down.  
  
"If it didn't add flavor, they wouldn't call it Aspergillus_ flavus_," he replied as he disappeared around the corner.  
  
Fin blinked and shook his head slowly.  
  
"I think I just stepped into the twilight zone."  
  
-----  
  
"You can't come in. Sorry."  
  
The doorway was blocked by a heavy-set woman in her early forties wearing a Yankees baseball shirt, a cutoff denim skirt, and navy blue pumps with one-inch heels. Her blond hair was thin and pulled back in a ponytail; her face was free of makeup but was hidden behind an oversized pair of dark sunglasses. A simple gold chain with a crucifix pendant hung around her neck. She was the lady of the castle.  
  
"Twyla Shiler?" asked Olivia, pulling out her badge.  
  
The woman tilted her head to one side. "Did Tara send you? Because I already talked to someone this morning and I told them, I accidentally washed the sweatshirt--I washed the sweatshirt--and the sheets and I didn't see it; I didn't see the note until it was too late. Jessi's always going out. She's not supposed to, but she does anyway; she goes out." She inhaled deeply. "What does Tara want me to tell you now?"  
  
"Ms. Shiler, we're with Special Victims in Manhattan. I'm Detective Benson; this is my partner, Detective Stabler. The NYPD sent us to investigate the statutory rape of your niece, Jessi, and we need to ask you a few questions about last night." Olivia worked to keep her voice even and soothing--this woman seemed to be a few outs shy of an inning.  
  
"So Tara sent you." The tone of Twyla's voice made it obvious what she thought of the detectives. "I have the note now--do you want it? I tried to give it to the cop this morning, but he said I couldn't call her missing until twenty-four hours had passed. Here, take the damn note, it's been some hours, pretend it's twenty-four."  
  
She shoved a creased and torn piece of notebook paper in Elliot's face. Olivia pulled on another glove and took it.  
  
It read:  
  
_ "Aunt T,  
  
Gone out. Back never.  
  
--Jessi"_  
  
"Dots her 'i's with pentagrams. Cute," said Elliot.  
  
Olivia tucked it into a plastic bag.  
  
"I thought you were coming here to arrest Nick. I called him and called him, and he never answered. I called Jessi, and it was the same story. What the hell is going on here? Don't you think--" she paused to swallow the spit she'd worked up "--don't you think that if your mother tells you to stay away from a guy because she's having him arrested for rape, you would stay away from him?"  
  
"Ms. Shiler--" Olivia began.  
  
"Lady Twyla," she interrupted. "Lady Twyla de Shile. Servant to the Holy and Loving Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ." She crossed herself and bowed her head in prayer.  
  
"Lady Twyla," said Elliot, trying so hard not to chuckle. "Have you ever been to Nick Jeremy's apartment?"  
  
"I don't go out!" she replied, vigorously shaking her head. "I don't go out. Sometimes I do. I mean, I don't, really. Just for church--for the Convocation of Grace in the Light of His Gospel of Unifying Divinity." She crossed herself again.  
  
Olivia bit her lip so hard she was sure she'd drawn blood.  
  
"So last night, you were here--the whole night?"  
  
"Of course I was here. I was in the library. I read books, and I watch baseball. Last night I watched baseball--Jessi never wants to watch with me. She just got here from the city and I saw her for a few minutes, and she said--she said she was going to bed and I went to the back of the house. It was late, I think it was ten. I heard sounds, but I ignored them." Her tone of voice was one of sheer apathy. "When the inning ended, I went up to check on her, and she was gone. I called my sister, and I called the police. I talked to the one who came out here, and then I was tired so I fell asleep. When I woke up, I went back in the room and found the note, and I called Tara and the police again. They said that I could call in a missing person after twenty-four hours. Tara told me not to be worried, because there was a warrant for Nick so that meant you would find Jessi when you found him."  
  
The detectives nodded and exchanged glances. Olivia's told Elliot she didn't buy it. Elliot's told Olivia to push as far as she needed to.  
  
"Ms. Shi--I mean, Lady Twyla. Did you or your sister think to send anyone to check for Jessi over at Nick's apartment?"  
  
"Of course," said Twyla. "Nobody was home."  
  
"And when was that?" asked Elliot.  
  
"Around midnight," she replied.  
  
"Who went?" asked Olivia.  
  
"My friend from church, Nancy Della Rocco. She works at RPI--in the Dean's Office of the Engineering Department."  
  
"She knows Nick pretty well?"  
  
Twyla nodded. "Did something happen?" she asked.  
  
Olivia hedged. "We're not quite sure what happened. Do you know anyone who might have seen Jessi that night--any friends of Nick's that might have seen the two of them together?"  
  
Twyla stared into space. Elliot took advantage of the opportunity to survey what he could see of the inside of the house. It was austere, and barely seemed lived-in.  
  
"It would help us to place her whereabouts last night," Olivia added.  
  
The woman contorted her face and creased her forehead with an exaggeration of deep thought. "Somewhere on the bus line, I guess? Where else could they go?"  
  
"Nick doesn't own a vehicle?"  
  
She laughed and shook her head, leaning her face in towards them.  
  
"No. He's so easy to find, since he's dependent on the bus. Takes it to RPI every day. Nancy told me. I couldn't believe it for the longest time. Jessi's a fool--what good is an older man if he's broke and lives in a dump, drawing cartoons all day?"  
  
Elliot stared at her intently.  
  
"Do you think your friend would mind if we talked to her?" he asked.  
  
"It's almost quarter to five, but...I'll call her and tell her to stay at work. You'll like Rensselaer's campus, even with the construction." Twyla smiled broadly. "Troy is so beautiful. Have a good time there."  
  
She shut the door in their faces.  
  
"I guess we're going to RPI, then," said Olivia, turning and walking down off the porch alongside Elliot.  
  
He reached up underneath the first trellis and plucked a grape.  
  
"Looks that way," he said, and ate it.  
  
-----  
  
Five-thirty p.m. meant a traffic jam that spanned Route 7 from Latham across the river and up the hill to Brunswick. It meant Olivia regretted knowing the area as she sat behind the wheel at the traffic light marking the seam of the bridge to Troy and the bottom of Hoosick Street, while her partner closed his eyes and napped in the passenger seat--her bagel, now half-eaten, in a hand lazily draped in his lap. He looked serene; she was envious.  
  
"Oh, come on, it's green, people! Let's go, here!"  
  
Her fingers drummed on the steering wheel. Elliot listened with restrained amusement. Of course he wasn't really sleeping; it was just fun to pretend, to get her going. Lately, when she became sufficiently annoyed, she would get this look in her eyes that he found hilarious. Maybe she'd always done it, but he only started noticing since she changed her hair. The longer it got, the younger she looked--which was funny, since everyone else seemed only to look older every day. He hadn't really thought about it before, but it was true.  
  
As the car crawled up the hill, he thought back to the Shiler house. It was nice to be able to just sit and think, for a change. All the way along I-787, Olivia had been on the phone with Grady, and he couldn't concentrate. This case was a mess. His partner was a mess. He was a mess- -no, he was fine. It was the sun, still at full force, that was making him feel strange. And the crime scene chemicals; they must have had something to do with it. He was thirsty, so that had to factor in. Olivia was tapping on the wheel again, and he felt a little bit guilty for drinking all her water.  
  
"Ugh," she moaned quietly. "Traffic jam and construction."  
  
He could hear her take a deep breath and harrumph--and very carefully, very slightly, he opened an eye to look at her. There was that expression again, just as expected. She was vigorously mussing her hair with her left hand, then smoothing it out. Elliot wondered why she was so worked up. He knew that more often than not, the cases affected her, but this one came with a bizarre cast of characters. The aunt was obviously unstable; the boyfriend liked, well, unusual pictures; they were all crazy cult members who would probably cross themselves if someone told them Swiss cheese was holey. It was easy for him to joke, to stay detached from the situation and analyze it. He realized that he wasn't worried for anyone involved--teen girl, boyfriend, missing girls. And that troubled him. Was it possible he wasn't disinterested, but uninterested? If that was true, then Olivia was right: he did need therapy.  
  
He began to squirm uncomfortably. He needed therapy? Not possible. Not when nothing was wrong at home. Things were better than they had been in years. Kathy hadn't made any remarks about his work hours or closeness to his partner in weeks, since she started the counseling. He tried to stuff the thoughts back where they came from, because personal crap should never interfere with work. That was how it was supposed to be, and he would not fail himself by being distracted. He focused on his partner, studying her face as she followed the detour signs.  
  
At last, Olivia maneuvered into a parking space. She looked at her watch--it was almost six. It had taken almost half an hour just to go up the hill and find a place to park. In all that time, Grady hadn't called back--and he said he would, once he had finished going through the cell phone records he had pulled.  
  
"All right, wake up," she said, turning to Elliot.  
  
Of course, he was already grinning at her. Again! She cut the motor, got out of the car, slammed the door and marched up toward the building without saying a word.  
  
Elliot wondered, once again, what it was that was setting her off. He climbed out after her and followed her into the large brick building, where their interviewee was ready and waiting.  
  
"Traffic must be horrible, huh," she said, extending a hand toward Olivia. "I'm Nancy Della Rocco; my friend Twyla Shiler told me to expect you."  
  
Olivia shook her hand. "I'm Detective Benson; this is my partner, Detective Stabler."  
  
Elliot eyed the woman's overflowing tote bag.  
  
"Glad you decided to stick around and wait for us," he commented.  
  
She blushed a bit.  
  
"Well, I do have to get home to my family," she said, adjusting her purse strap.  
  
"Must be nice," muttered Elliot.  
  
"You have children, Detective?" asked Nancy; Elliot realized she must have heard him.  
  
"Four," he replied.  
  
The woman nodded. She was a small woman, slightly built, with a look one might describe as bookish--glasses, simple clothes, boxy oxfords, shoulder-length mousey brown hair, a hooked nose and the hint of a moustache. Her purse strap slid precariously downward; she had no shoulders to speak of.  
  
"We won't keep you long," said Olivia.  
  
Nancy smiled, and her purse strap fell. A wallet tumbled out, and its contents littered the floor.  
  
"Oh, no!" she moaned, dropping down to pick up the mess.  
  
"Let me help you," offered Olivia.  
  
She reached down and picked up a photograph. It was a school portrait--the boy in the picture was obviously crippled, with a pained and uncontrolled expression on his face like a smile and a grimace all at once.  
  
"Your son?" asked the detective as the other woman turned a deep red.  
  
"Yes, that's my son, Jesse. He..." Mrs. Della Rocco looked extremely embarrassed and apologetic. "He has cerebral palsy."  
  
Neither detective knew what to say. The woman pocketed her belongings in the awkward silence that followed.  
  
"You wanted to ask me about Nick and Jessica?" she said at length.  
  
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Della Rocco. We just need to know about your trip to Nick Jeremy's apartment last night--around midnight?"  
  
She nodded. "I know Nick. He's one course shy of a degree in aerospace engineering--when Twyla told me she thought Jessi was over there, I was shocked. Nick and Jessica have morals, you know."  
  
"Right," said Elliot.  
  
"So of course I went over. I knew the address from all the times I've sent letters to it. Anyway, when I got there, there were no lights on in the whole building. I tried to go in, but it was too dark to see, so I yelled a few times. Nobody answered, so I went home and I told Twyla no one was there."  
  
"Mrs. Della Rocco, you say you went inside the building?" Olivia asked.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Did you notice anything unusual when you went in?"  
  
"It was pitch black in there. I was afraid someone was going to jump out at me--I just stuck my head in. I didn't try to go upstairs. So, no, I didn't notice anything unusual."  
  
Elliot added a question of his own.  
  
"Mrs. Della Rocco--we know that you, the Shilers, and Mr. Jeremy attend the same church. Can you tell me about his involvement with it?"  
  
Nancy stiffened.  
  
"No, I can't say I really noticed him there. I know him from RPI, in an academic capacity."  
  
"But you said he and Jessica had morals."  
  
"I would hope!" she snapped. "I try to hold onto an optimistic perspective, Detective. It helps me to get through each day, the Lord willing."  
  
Elliot noticed that she didn't cross herself.  
  
"Our apologies, ma'am. Thank you for your time--" Olivia offered, but the woman had already taken her bags and barged her way out the door. Olivia sighed and shrugged her shoulders.  
  
"That was interesting," offered Elliot.  
  
"And really informative," she said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Worth driving out here for what she had to say."  
  
"Maybe." He placed a hand on her back to guide her out the door. "We should head back to Colonie and see what Grady's got for us."  
  
She frowned and pulled the car keys from her pocket. "Back into traffic, yippee."  
  
"...and I'll drive."  
  
Olivia smiled. It was a cute smile; Elliot returned it.  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"Welcome."  
  
Outside, the heat had dropped a few degrees as they headed for the black sedan.  
  
-----  
  
Buying the yoga mat had been a stupid idea. The human body was never designed to bend in certain directions--at least, not her body, and not in those directions. The woman on the flyer had her foot on top of her head. To Casey, that was like a neon, flashing sign reading "Do not try this at home!" And yet, when she bought the mat, she found out that was precisely where she was supposed to use it. The yoga studio had plenty of them already. She felt dumb for leaving it rolled up in the corner of her living room, but she was fairly certain she'd feel dumber sitting square on the floor in front of the television, pulling her feet over her head and trying to catch a peek at CNN from between her toes.  
  
But today, she finally had a use for it. It was five minutes to seven as she rolled it out on the floor at Tara's gym. She shivered: it was sixty degrees in the aerobics studio, but that was a good sign. The last time she had done something like this--the time when she'd bought the mat--it had been for Bikram yoga. _That_, she knew, was the ultimate in sadistic torture. Painful contortions, hundred-degree heat, full humidity...Yanni on the sound system...it was evil. If Pilates was anything like that, she didn't care what favor she had promised Aaron, she was out of there.  
  
She brushed the shorter bits of hair from her face and adjusted her yoga top. It was brand new, and her favorite shade of green. She felt it went well with her heather gray sweatpants and navy and white track shoes. Stealthily, she checked herself out in the mirror.  
  
'Looking good,' she assured herself, and rolled the cuffs of her white ankle socks down.  
  
Casey knew that if she focused on anything other than what she was about to do, it would help her when she tried to do it. Drum and bass music began to play in the background; she listened to that. Other women rolled out their mats behind hers and began to stretch. She copied their moves, watching them in the mirror. One woman lifted her leg up. Casey tried to put hers on her head: it still wasn't happening.  
  
Her eyes scanned the room for the instructor. Maybe, if she was lucky, the class would begin before her quarry arrived: she could deliver her message afterward, when hell's fury had at least cooled down a few degrees. At that moment a blond woman came through the door. Their eyes met, and, as Munch would describe it later, the spark of recognition lit the bonfire of mutual loathing.  
  
"Since when do _you_ work out," Tara Shiler growled.  
  
"Just started," Casey replied, slouching into a normal stance. "I heard that Pilates benefits your body and your soul."  
  
"What, so did you ask for a 50%-off discount?" Tara spat. "Since you don't have the one, and so desperately need help with the other."  
  
Casey glared at her. The shorter, older woman dropped her bag on the ground beside Casey's mat, arched her back, and reached up for the ceiling in a stretch.  
  
"Besides," the former representative continued, "you were misinformed. The emphasis of Pilates is on core strength--your back and your abs, to benefit your spine."  
  
"Oh. In that case, they must have let you in free."  
  
Tara glowered at her. "You liberals are all the same," she hissed.  
  
Casey started to snap a comeback, but was cut off by the instructor's microphone.  
  
_"Let's begin with a big inhale up...exhale down...and plié, inhale up...legs wide apart."_  
  
Casey copied the instructor's motions; in the plié, she felt something tear. She winced. Tara was watching her in the mirror, she knew--because in between desperate attempts to keep up with the ballet crap, she was watching Tara.  
  
_ "Exhale down...and plié. Big arms, tighten those abs--don't arch your back--strong core, and inhale up..."_  
  
"Don't tell me you can't even stretch out," said Tara, just loud enough for her to hear.  
  
She chose to ignore the comment.  
  
_ "Arms in front: bring them down to the floor...and stay there."  
_  
Casey tried to keep the horrified expression off her face. Touch her toes? She couldn't do that, let alone touch the floor. But Tara's fingertips rested lightly on her mat, and Casey would not be outdone. She gritted her teeth, reached, and connected--and watched as Tara lowered to place her knuckles on the floor. Rivalry was sometimes painful; as she exhaled down to match her enemy she reminded herself that if they were at the batting cages, Tara would be the one struggling to keep up.  
  
Even better--if they were at the cages, Casey would have a nice aluminum bat. Yes, she would have liked that bat in her hands about then, as the starved-thin blond woman grinned up at her and set her palms down flat on the floor.  
  
_ "Roll it up slowly, one vertebra at a time...arms out, legs wide and take it into side lunges."_  
  
Casey realized suddenly that everyone was standing again. Her rival was leaning left, then right, her legs wide and straddling the mat. The ADA smiled--finally, something she could do. She let her mind drift back to her youth, when she was her family's "little slugger." They took her to t-ball, little league, and softball--she played for eighteen years before college ended and she switched to coaching. It was her one passion, other than the law. In fact, softball was how she got to know Aaron.  
  
He lectured sometimes in her criminal law course years before, when she was in her second year at law school, and just starting as an assistant coach in the youth league. One day, he brought his daughter in to register for the little league--he recognized his student, and the rest was history, even though Casey never coached Jessi's team. Casey realized she probably wouldn't even recognize the girl if she saw her. She'd moved in with her mother--that rail-thin spokeswoman for mascara overuse and gender bias--and quit the league, likely because of it. The ADA didn't exactly peg Tara as a team player.  
  
Along with the rest of the class, Casey stepped out of the lunges and into sweeps. Her mind wandered into self-reflection as she watched the other twenty lycra-sheathed bodies move fluidly with the melody-free beat. Maybe she couldn't be as pretty as the other women; maybe she didn't share their passion for shopping and tanning and matching their earrings to their coordinated little outfits. Maybe she didn't care, anyway. Her dad had wanted a boy--what he got was as close as possible. She could hit a 95-mph curve ball into the stands, and that was good enough for her.  
  
"What did you come here for, really?" hissed Tara. "Have you got something to tell me?"  
  
"We should go out in the hall to talk about it."  
  
Tara snorted. "Like hell I'm wasting the money I paid for these sessions. Tell me here. Did your detectives find my daughter? What happened at her useless boyfriend's apartment?"  
  
Casey lost her rhythm and struggled to recover.  
  
"How did you know something happened?"  
  
"It's kind of obvious when the police have a blockade around the place. Don't you think?"  
  
"_All right, let's do our sun salutations. Feet together and reach up..."_  
  
"So, tell me where my daughter is."  
  
_ "And dive down all the way."_  
  
Casey didn't answer. She couldn't, not in this vulnerable position.  
  
_"Inhale and look up."_  
  
"I'm waiting. And you called _me_ spineless, you liberal--"  
  
_"And exhale and look at your knees. Inhale, look up."_  
  
"If you saw the blockade, then you should know that the police did not find Jessi at Nick's apartment."  
  
_"Exhale, look down, and take the right leg back into a lunge and hold it."_  
  
"Then where is she. Didn't your detectives get him to tell you where she went?"  
  
If Casey had been looking, she would have seen the look of shock on the other woman's face.  
  
"The police are looking for her. Neither she nor her boyfriend have been accounted for."  
  
"And you waited this long to tell me?" Tara was fuming, on the verge of screaming.  
  
_"And bring the other leg back to a plank, and hold it."_  
  
"I'm sorry, but you didn't leave us with many options. We tried to leave messages for you, but your voicemail was full."  
  
Tara climbed to her feet and rolled up her mat. Casey could only see her sneakers from her push-up-like position.  
  
"I don't believe this," Tara snapped. She was pacing angrily, as though ready to storm out of the room but unsure of the location of the door.  
  
The instructor had stopped talking, and was looking directly at her.  
  
"Is something wrong, Ms. Shiler?"  
  
Casey rolled back onto her heels, thankful for the break from the pain--only to have her arm wrenched from its socket.  
  
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Casey demanded. Tara's grip on her forearm was a little too strong and she reached to pry her fingers off, but was pulled toward the door. The two grappled as Tara dragged the hapless ADA out into the main lobby.  
  
"You incompetent idiot! Do you realize what you've done?" Tara spat.  
  
Casey deflected a nasty right hook.  
  
"Would you get your hands off me!" she barked, doing her best not to actively fight her attacker.  
  
"You're making a scene!" Tara shouted.  
  
"_I'm_ making a scene?" Casey retorted.  
  
Tara swung her hand up to claw at the ADA's face, but Casey was fast enough to catch her and their fingers interlaced. Tara dug her nails into Casey's flesh; Casey yelped and withdrew her hand, and was slammed backwards by a shove. She hit the glass door of the exit with her back, fell out into the street and landed on her butt on the concrete.  
  
"That sick bastard murdered three girls and you let him get away with Jessica!" Tara stood over her, her eyes wild with hate.  
  
Casey stood up, using her left arm to raise herself. She felt nothing--she was unaware of the crowd of people gathering, of her right arm, limp at her side, and of the two SVU detectives running along the sidewalk in her direction.  
  
"_I_ didn't let him get away with anything," she hissed. "That was _you_."  
  
"Freeze!"  
  
The impact of the woman's punch threw her backwards and spun her around. She never saw it coming. In slow motion, she collapsed toward the ground--Munch dived for her, catching her just before she hit.  
  
Tara turned to run. This was a mistake--she had to get away--and the people were blocking her. She needed to get out; she had to get away from there!  
  
"Get out of my way!" she screamed, but was grabbed from behind.  
  
"You're under arrest," Fin growled. He wrestled the shrieking former representative to the ground and cuffed her.  
  
"I didn't do anything!" Tara protested as she thrashed around.  
  
Fin lifted her to her feet. "You have the right to remain silent--"  
  
"Fin."  
  
The younger detective looked down at his partner, kneeling beside Casey's limp form. His face was as pale as hers.  
  
"We need an ambulance." 


End file.
